“Who are these self-appointed gatekeepers of Hispanic culture? This is offensive!” tweeted Peña.

“This is a guy who didn’t claim that he was Hispanic any time before he won a primary,” said chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Gilberto Hinojosa in an exclusive interview with WFAA-TV in Dallas last week. “If I was named Rafael Cruz, I would be proud to use that name. This guy has denied his own Hispanic heritage, if he is a Hispanic.”

Peña, a former Democrat, said that such comments are not just offensive to Ted Cruz, personally, but to “every Mexican American who is second, third or fourth generation and every African American who is somehow different from the expectation of some local community boss.”

“You’re not black enough, you’re not Hispanic enough, you’re not Jewish enough is a coward’s argument,” Peña told Texas on the Potomac”s Jennifer Dlouhy while at the Republican National Convention. “They said this about Barack Obama when he first started in politics.”

Peña’s twelfth tweet on the subject called on his followers to “RETWEET if you think the Democratic Party Chairman should apologize to Ted Cruz for his offensive racial/ethnic comments.”

When reached for comment at the Democratic National Convention, Hinojosa said that the apology should come from the other side of the aisle and be directed toward the constituents.

“I think if anybody needs to do any apologizing, it should be Rep. Peña who betrayed his party and his community,” said Hinojosa. He listed Peña’s support for redistricting, Voter ID law and “vot[ting] for five billion dollars in cuts to public education” as offenses committed by Pena against his community.

Similarly, he said Ted Cruz should apologize to Hispanics because “his hostility to Hispanics is unprecedented.”

Ted Cruz has previously said that he believes that Hispanic voters are “profoundly conservative.” However, Hinojosa claims that Ted Cruz’s stance “from Dream Act to Arizona immigration law to education to health care” are adverse to what not just Texas Hispanics, but voters from all over the nation, want.